“Kerry’s right,” Nat Schlesinger put in. The others turned; Nat spoke seldom, and when he did, they listened. “Anguish isn’t such a bad position,” he went on, “as long as the candidate’s unequivocally pro-choice and uses words like ‘painful’ instead of the word ‘life.’ Who in their right mind loves abortion?”
“Anthony’s Legions,” Mick replied. “And any other pro-choice group that believes words like ‘painful’ grease the slippery slope to back-alley abortions.”
Clayton saw Kerry’s eyes harden. “Three percent,” Kerry said. “If that. I’m pro-choice too, remember? All I’ve ever said is that an abortion isn’t like an appendectomy.”
Jack Sleeper frowned. “Before these Boston shootings, Kerry, you were right about the three percent. Maybe four percent in the Bay Area—well-educated white women who see choice as a litmus test.
“Dick Mason’s not a fool, and he can read polls as well as anyone. My tracking poll last night has him winning by two percent. Okay, who really knows? But your base in California is women—fifty percent, steady for the last five weeks—and you’re losing among men. All Dick wants to do is steal enough of that three percent to win.”
“And your advice?”
“Have a ‘pro-choice’ position you could write on the inside of a matchbook, then run onyour issues. Anddon’t let yourself get drawn into a debate about abortion, for God’s sake. Otherwise the media will turn your thirty seconds into guerrilla theater starring the scariest pro-choice women they can shove in front of a Minicam.” Jack shook his head, as though in wonderment that he needed to explain this. “You’re home free, Kerry. Maybe if there were some character issue Dick could hang this on, like you screwing other people’s wives, Dick could use what you’ve already said to make you look like a phony moralist. But he’s got nothing, so he can’t. Unless you continue to help him.”
For the first time, Clayton saw Kerry’s face close, his thoughts drift. Kerry looked at his watch and then around the sterile conference room: art from Sears; artificial flowers; light-cream wallpaper.
“Doesn’t someone else have this room reserved?” Kerry asked. “Maybe for an Amway meeting?”
“Anthony’s Legions,” Kit Pace said dryly.
Clayton shrugged. “We’ve got another half hour, Kerry, reviewing Frank’s greatest hits. Thirty-second spots of you at your most adorable.”
“Hate to miss it,” Kerry said, standing. “But I’ve gotGood Morning San Diego . A whole fifteen minutes, and it’s free. I don’t even have to watch myself.”
The telephone rang. Clayton rose to answer, listened for a moment, and then signaled Kerry to stay.
“What is it?” Kerry asked.
Clayton took a moment to answer. “Dick Mason just landed in Boston. He’s speaking in front of the abortion clinic in an hour.”
We should have guessed,Kerry thought. “New federal legislation,” he said at once. “Unleash the resources of the FBI. Anything this President can do for him.”
The room was quiet again. Then Nat Schlesinger shrugged. “It’s still a one-day story.”
Frank Wells looked up at Kerry. “Maybe you should go to one of the funerals. Preferably a woman’s—the nurse or the receptionist.”
“No,” Clayton said crisply. “Kerry will call the families. But he won’t follow Dick Mason around like a little dog, trying to be more like him. This campaign will be won in California, and we’ve already got a plan.”
He had made himself sound quite confident, Clayton thought. But the look on Kerry’s face as he left, pensive and preoccupied, mirrored his own questions.
THREE
At eight o’clock, when Nate Cutler returned to the Hyatt, the press assembly area buzzed with nervous activity.
Some of his colleagues had picked up their laundry—“Turn in by 9:30 p.m., back by 8:00 a.m.,” the hand-lettered sign said—and were leaving their suitcases on the stretch of sidewalk designated by the Secret Service. A Secret Service agent and two San Diego cops with a metal detector and a dog trained to sniff out explosives were going through their luggage, which the Service would not return until they reached that night’s hotel. No one complained about the security: everyone knew that John Hinckley Jr. had shot Ronald Reagan while standing amidst the press corps; everyone remembered that the last presidential candidate to be murdered was Kerry Kilcannon’s brother, shot by an assassin who had insinuated himself among the stage crew. Nate put his Secret Service ID tag around his neck and went to the private dining room reserved for Kilcannon’s entourage.
In the opinion of the press corps’s resident epicures, the dining experience provided by Kilcannon’s people was better than Mason’s but worse than Bob Dole’s—which, according to campaign lore, had set the modern standard for fine dining. Nate had been too distracted by Katherine Jones to eat, so he scooped up some scrambled eggs and sat with Lee McAlpine fromTime and Sara Sax fromNewsday . Lee was small, dark, and feisty; Sara was willowy and sometimes so fey in manner that Nate was still astonished that her reporting was crisp, smart, and to the point. They would provide him with some distraction, Nate hoped; he had been forced to leave his editor a somewhat cryptic message, and the notes folded in the pocket of his sport coat still unsettled him quite badly.
“What’s up?” Nate asked Lee.
She shrugged. “You’ve seen the schedule. This is the day that Kerry Kilcannon reveals the answer to the age-old question ‘What do women want?’ ”
Nate grinned. “Whatdo women want? My ex-wife forgot to tell me.”
Lee gave Sara a slightly wicked look. “I can only vouch for what Sara wants.” She nodded toward Dan Biasi of the Secret Service, dark and slender and earnestly handsome, eating at a table by himself. “Sara spotted him in Portland last night, protecting the candidate from TV reporters who trip over their own feet. Now she wants to fuck him—”
“Lee,”Sara protested.“Jesus.”
Nate turned to her. “Is that true, Sara? You’re a Secret Service groupie?”
Sara rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “He looks nice, okay? I’m thirty, I’m horny, and I haven’t been laid in three months.”
“Who has?” Nate inquired, and put an avuncular hand on Sara’s shoulder. “But, Sara,we can help. Look around you—you’ve got friends here. Why go to an outsider?” Pausing, Nate had a brief ironic thought, then added, “I don’t think that’s even ethical.”
Sara raised her eyebrows and made a show of surveying each table for prospects among the press. Nate and Lee followed her gaze; it stopped abruptly at three burly camera guys from the networks—in attitude and outlook, the blue-collar contingent of the press corps, variously featuring a ponytail, a Dallas Cowboys cap, and a Marine Corps tattoo. When Mr. Tattoo produced a cigar, Lee burst out laughing.
“I rest my case,” said Sara.
“What?” Nate asked her. “You were wantingforeplay ?”
“I thought so,” Sara responded. “And not from little red bugs, either.”
“The Cowboys hat is the tip-off,” Lee observed.
Nate smiled. “Sometimes a hat is only a hat. But a cigar always smells.”
Lee gave him a droll look. “We are so clever, aren’t we? And it’s early yet.”
“Nate has an advantage,” Sara put in. “He filed his story last night, he doesn’t look hungover, and somehow he got a haircut—”
“Idid the haircut,” Lee said.
Nate nodded gravely. “We were going to have sex, but we were both too tired. So I buffed her nails instead.”
Abruptly, Lee seemed bored with banter. “What do you two make of what Mason’s doing?” she asked. “This Boston trip.”
Nate chose not to answer; what he might know made him closemouthed. “You try,” he said to Sara. “I’ve got no idea.”
Sara thought for a moment. “I can imagine Mason lying awake thinking,California killed this guy’s brother, and now they’ll think they owe him. It’s not just the abortion issue; Mason’s looking
to borrow a little sympathy, especially from women, remind them of what a feeling guy he is. I mean, Boston’s not Oklahoma City, but it’s the only tragedy we’ve got. At least until some airplane crashes.”
Lee nodded, then turned to Nate. “No theory at all? You’ve usually got two or three.”
Never forget, Nate told himself, how perceptive these women are. “Not a one,” he answered, and then his pager beeped.
Edgy, Nate checked the message, then stood. “Better run,” he said. “Bus leaves in fifteen minutes.”
Lee gave him a probing look. “What is it?” she asked. “The Pulitzer Prize Committee?”
Nate smiled. “Yeah. They’re calling to apologize.”
He went quickly to find a pay phone—something with a hard connection, where no one could overhear.
* * *
Nate hunched inside the open phone booth. Next to him, a pompous businessman was talking about computer chips; Nate’s editor, Jane Booth, spoke as loudly as she could. Her office door was shut, she had assured him, and no one else would hear.
“It’s a killer story,” she said, “with two big questions: ‘Can we source it?’ and if we can, ‘Will we decide to print it?’ ”
Nate could already imagine an agonized series of editorial meetings—the political editor, the managing editor, the executive editor, and even the publisher would have to approve every step their reporters took, and the decision as to whetherNewsworld should change the course of this campaign would be weighed with care. Substance was important, and so was appearance: the press’s fascination with itself was such that ifNewsworld printed the story, their competitors would follow with ten other stories, detailing how the decision was made to end a presidential candidacy and, in all likelihood, the career of a now-famous woman journalist.
“What do you think?” Nate asked. “If it’s true, will we print it?”
“We damned wellshould .” Jane’s tone was combative, as if she was preparing for argument with her male colleagues; Nate could imagine her, gray-haired and gaunt and more than a little intense, pacing as she spoke. “To me, the first thing that makes this story a legitimate public issue is that it sheds real light on who Kilcannon is. People should know what drives him.”
Nate glanced at the man next to him. “The idea that we’reexplaining him ignores the fact that we’d beeliminating him. Were we just explaining Gary Hart? Or was there a serious question of judgment there?”
“There’s onehere too,” Jane snapped. “Kilcannon was sleeping with a reporter who covered him. That’s not like fucking some model for No Excuses jeans.”
“So pull up what she wrote about him,” Nate replied. “Maybe she gave him a break, maybe she didn’t.”
“Do you thinkwe should giveher a break, Nate?”
The question had an edge and more than one dimension—whether Nate would push the story; whether he was soft on Lara Costello; whether he’d gone native after three months of covering Kilcannon; whether he really wanted some competitor to beat them. “No,” he said in a lower voice. “But I’ve got a confidential counseling document which describes a woman in emotional extremity—one who only felt comfortable talking to a stranger who was ethically bound to protect her secrets. I remember some of the things I told my marriage counselor—”
“Nobody cares about your little kinks,” Jane cut in, “and no one should. You’re not running for President.”
“Believe me, I never would. But I understand your point.”
Mollified, Jane spoke in a practical tone. “The real problem is sourcing it. Our rule is still two sources, even now, and you say this woman doesn’t want to speak on the record.”
“Thereal problem,” Nate answered, “is proving it. In theory, any nut job with a political ax to grind could put any fiction in a document and swear to God it’s true.”
“You believe Costello was a patient, don’t you? Would this counselor make that up too?”
“Probably not, and we can probably prove it, even ifthat’s supposed to be confidential.” Nate checked his watch. “Look, Jane, only two people in the world know the truth. At some point we’re going to have to ask them, even if all we get is lies. I need to know when and how to approach Kilcannon.”
There was a thoughtful pause. “Wait on that, okay? Costello’s here in Washington and easier to get to. I’ll ask someone who knows her to invite her out to lunch.”
Imagining Lara’s feelings, Nate became queasy at the thought of such an ambush. He knew the pressuresNewsworld could put on her, the implicit threats to check with neighbors or ex-colleagues should Lara deny an affair. He remembered an incident during the last campaign, when several second-tier papers tracked a bogus rumor that a conservative presidential candidate had contracted AIDS. The supposed source had been a nurse at a private clinic. One reporter had threatened her; another sent her roses; still another arrived at her home with toys for her cat; several more descended on her neighbors and then her employer. Finally, the woman had quit her job and moved.
“If someone saw Lara leave his apartment at five in the morning,” Nate said at last, “that looks like an affair. An affair makes this counselor’s story a lot more credible. And if Lara claims she never saw Kilcannon except in public, andthat looks like a lie, then she’s a lot less credible about everything. The catch is that once we start visiting friends and neighbors, our competition is likely to find out.”
“True,” Jane answered. “What I’m recommending is that this afternoon we send someone to knock on this counselor’s door, at the address you gave me in Maryland.”
“Be sure to ask her who she gave this memo to. If I understand this woman’s motivation, I can’t imagine her calling Anthony’s Legions. Even Katherine Jones swears the lady never talked to them.”
“So wheredo you think this is coming from?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out.” Glancing at the adjacent booth, Nate saw that the businessman was gone. “My thought is the GOP. Maybe they think Dick Mason will be easier to beat.”
“Wouldn’t they wait until Kilcannon was nominated,” Jane said promptly, “thenlet this out? That way they’d win in a walk.”
That made sense, Nate admitted to himself. “Suppose they think the counselor’s shaky?” Nate responded. “If it’s Mason, wouldn’t one of his people go to whatever reporter he’s closest to and say, ‘I’ve got the story of a lifetime, and the deal is it didn’t come from us’? Why so elliptical, unless it’s the Republicans and they don’t want to get caught picking the Democratic nominee?”
“Maybe. Anyhow, we’ll try to trace how the memo got to Katherine Jones.” Jane’s tone became thoughtful. “The timing of this argues for Dick Mason, you know. He’s the one who needs this out before Tuesday.”
Already, Nate thought, they had focused on the campaign—who was doing what to whom. Lara Costello was beginning to seem like the victim of a drive-by shooting, or maybe one of the three dead people in Boston Dick Mason was using for fodder. But Jane had reminded him of a central fact: whoever had planted the story,Newsworld did not control it, and the leaker’s desire to see it printed would be as keen as the instincts of Nate’s rivals.
“If you’re right about Mason,” he said, “his campaign may slip it to someone else unless we move by the weekend. Even to the Net or theNational Enquirer , if Mason’s desperate enough. He’ll hope that some paper in the mainstream press will report what theEnquirer ’s reporting and that the rest of us will fall into line. With great reluctance, of course.”
Jane laughed softly. “As someone once said, ‘Politics ain’t beanbag.’ Neither is journalism.”
“Well,” Nate said, “better run. Tell me when to approach Kilcannon’s press secretary. And leave a message on voice mail to let me know what’s happening.”
“Will do.”
“Oh, and one more thing. Send someone over to my apartment, and FedEx me some lightweight clothes I can wear in paradise. This wool sport coat is feeling like chain m
ail.”
Jane laughed again. “I’ll have them send your Hawaiian shirts,” she promised.
* * *
Nate got to the press buses with about a minute to go.
There were a couple of seats left in the third bus. Nate walked with his briefcase to the back and found himself sitting next to the cameraman from NBC, he of the Dallas Cowboys cap. The man nodded curtly; Nate generally did not condescend to talk to him, and now felt somewhat elitist about using him for sport this morning.
“So,” Nate asked, “how’s Mike Devore doing?”
The man shrugged. “Pissed, mostly. He’s spending the next month in an ankle cast.”
“If you talk to him, say hi. Tell him for me that he’s gone to a better place.”
The cameraman laughed. Encouraged, Nate asked, “So who’s replacing him?”
This brought a genuine smile. “With all respect to Mike, we’ve gotten an upgrade. It’s Lara Costello.”
Nate sat back.“Lara,” he said at length. “Yeah, it’ll be nice to see her.”
FOUR
A few minutes after Kerry left the meeting, Kit Pace had checked her watch.
“I’ve got to get downstairs,” she said. “Start telling our friends in the press what we’ll be accomplishing at every stop. They get so anxious when they’re not plugged in.”
Clayton smiled; Kit had proved expert at roving through the back of the plane, feeding tidbits to the media and telling them what to think. “I guess by the end of the day,” he said dryly, “Kerry will have overachieved again.”
Kit smiled back. “He’s astonishing that way. Thing is, some of our press pals are so lazy that they’re grateful for my help. Not the best ones, of course, but eventhey respond to kindness.”
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